Soka University Site Dedicated

As they placed a cornerstone for what will be the library, Soka University officials on Monday welcomed the public to the site of their new campus in Aliso Viejo.

The Daisaku and Kaneko Ikeda Library, a Mediterranean-style building with terraces overlooking lotus ponds, will serve as an entrance from the parking lots to the 103-acre, $200-million hilltop campus bordered by Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park.

Administrators of the four-year liberal arts college, which is funded by the Soka Gakkai Buddhist denomination, say they are dedicated to a humanistic curriculum for students from different faiths and races.

“No one needs another university like every other university,” Eric Hauber, dean of faculty, said after the morning dedication ceremony, which drew several hundred guests. “We want to go beyond that to graduate people who are well educated and have a sense of character. We want to educate people who leave with a sense of mission.”

To that end, the university curriculum will concentrate on the humanities, social sciences and international relations. The exterior campus, with its stunning view of a verdant, oak-dotted canyon, is intended to be a counterpoint to the high-tech atmosphere inside its buildings. Every dormitory room will have at least one laptop computer portal.

The school expects to enroll its first 100 students in September 2001. Within 10 to 15 years, Soka officials say, they project enrollment of 1,200 undergraduates and 300 graduate students. The goal is to ensure that students have personal attention in classes with a 9-to-1 student-instructor ratio. Annual tuition and board will be about $24,000.

Soka spokeswoman Wendy W. Harder said that undergraduates will be required to take three years of foreign language and to complete an overseas internship. No religion classes will be required, though comparative religion courses will be offered.

The Aliso Viejo campus is Soka’s second in Southern California. The first is in the Santa Monica Mountains near Calabasas. Both are funded by Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist organization that claims millions of members in more than 100 countries, including 20,000 in Southern California and about 2,000 in Orange County.

Soka Gakkai’s teachings are based on the beliefs of a 13th century fisherman’s son. The sect gained prominence in Japan this century.

The group and its leader, Daisaku Ikeda, have been criticized in Japan as proselytizers too concerned with possessions. But its members view the religion as divinely inspired in its opposition to Japan’s militarism before and during World War II and its attempts to make Buddhism accessible to ordinary people.

Ananda W.P. Guruge, a Cal State Fullerton lecturer in comparative religions, said he thinks the new Soka campus will succeed.

“You have to give a lot of credit to these people,” he said. “They’ve managed to get through the storms to create a very serious body of Buddhist work. I’m very sure their university will become a major center for the study of Buddhism and Japanese culture.”

The Soka site in Calabasas has been embroiled in a land-use controversy since 1990, when university leaders proposed expanding the campus. A scaled-back plan won approval from the California Coastal Commission a year ago, despite complaints by neighbors and environmentalists that the development would spoil one of the last large, pristine canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains.

“Most people have no idea who and what Soka is--Soka tends to fly under the radar,” said Mark Massara, director of coastal programs for the Sierra Club, which opposed the Calabasas expansion. “They’re so influential and have so much money.”

The Aliso Viejo campus, Massara said, “is something activists ought to keep an eye on.”

Soka already has approvals to build in Aliso Viejo, and construction is well underway on four residence halls, two academic buildings, a portion of the student center, a recreation facility, reception center and lighted athletic fields.

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New Campus in South County

Set to open in September 2001 with 100 students, Soka University’s Aliso Viejo campus will eventually enroll 1,200 undergraduate and 300 graduate students, officials say.

Source: Soka University